And Fly
by oncethrown
Summary: What if you and I were Mutants? If we were living our lives outside of the conflict between Xavier and Magneto what would they be like? This is about Gabe Brookes. Only child, higschool senior, Mutant.
1. The News Tonight

**_Sorry about the initial formatting errors. _**

**_Full Summary:_**_ It's tough to be different. It's tougher to be a Mutant. Especially when the world hates you, Congress is trying to tag you like an animal, and the whole world is panicked about the possibility of a war between Mutants and Humanity. Magneto's created a guerilla army of Mutants and Charles Xavier has created a haven for Mutants. But what about those outside of the conflict? Those who haven't chosen a side? This is a story about Gabriel Brookes- only child, high school senior, and Mutant. _

**_Clarifications:_**_ Not all mutant abilities are unique. Jean Grey, Charles Xavier and Emma Frost are all telepaths, Wolverine, Sabertooth and Lady Deathstrike (Yuriko) all have similar mutations, and a character in this story has powers similar to those of characters in the movies and comics. He isn't the same character, but it was too good a element to pass up. Just so we are clear. _

Gabriel Brookes peeked into the window in the door of his first hour class and groaned. He had slept through his alarm and now he'd have to go ask Mrs. Young for the homework. He pulled at a thread coming out of his shirt and sighed.

Mrs. Young would just blame this on the lack of a strong male role model in his life. He tugged the thread harder. He didn't understand why Mrs. Young thought having a father would keep him from being tired. Or why she thought that his family was any of her business. Gabriel looked down at his chest and realized with horror that his shirt was unraveling. He grabbed the thread, but it just streamed out of his shirt faster. The bell rang. kids started spilling out of classrooms and Gabriel found himself shirtless in the hallway. And people were starting to scream.

_"Gabe's got a wings!" _

_"Gabe's a mutant !" _

Gabe tried run, but he was glued to the floor. He tried to tuck his wings back in, but they wouldn't move. And now the crowd was enveloping him, still screaming and now starting to attack him, clawing at his skin and yanking out his feathers.

_"Gabe's a monster!" _

_"Gabe!" _

_"Gabe!" _

"Gabe?" he felt someone pulling at his wing, "Gabe, honey wake up!"

He jolted up and frantically glanced around the room. He was in his room, not at school,  
he could move his wings, and there was no one here but his mother, Martha Brookes, standing on the other side of his bed and holding her hands placating in front of her.

"You okay?" She asked, head tilted in concern.

"Yeah," Gabriel sighed, "Yeah," he gave her a weak smile, "I just had a really weird dream."

"All right," she sounded unconvinced, "Whatever you say."

"What time is it?" Gabriel asked before his mother could inquire further about his recurring nightmare. At least it didn't seem like he'd been talking in his sleep this time. Last week he'd woken up screaming "Don't pull! Don't pull!". That had been hard to explain.

"It's morning, you might as well get up for school now," Martha shrugged, "We're out of cereal, but we've got bagels in the fridge."

"Kay," Gabriel said getting up and stretching.

"Oh, and I'm giving a late massage tonight, so you'll be on your own for dinner."

"Can I have some money for Chinese?" Gabriel asked hopefully.

His mother gave him an appraising look, "You promise to order something with vegetables in it and have a glass of milk with your supper?"

"Of course," He nodded.

"Fine"

"Thanks," Gabe smiled, grabbing a leather harness made from an amalgamation of belts off a hook on his wall. He threw it over his shoulders and folded reddish brown wings and started pulling the belts together.

"I wish you wouldn't wear that thing," Martha sighed as Gabriel pulled the straps tight around his stomach.

"Well, mom, it's like a corset. It hides that unsightly bulge," He gestured at his back showing off how the harness helped pull his wings, which naturally folded in quite close to his body, even tighter to him.

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"It's better than the alternative Mom," Gabriel said. He lived the alternative in his sleep most nights. He would rather put up with leather straps ruffling his feathers.

Martha walked out of his room shaking her head and closed the door behind her. Gabriel went over to his closet and started pulling out clothes.

Up until he was about 13 his mother had been able to hide what she annoyingly called his "little cherub wings" in oversized T-shirts, but Gabriel's normal pubescent growths spurts, like shooting from 4'11 to 6'1, and going from a size six shoe to a size eleven, had included his 3 foot wingspan stretching to 15 feet.

This had called for a major wardrobe overhaul and after some experimentation Martha, who had a lot of talent with a sewing machine and an eye for style, had come up with a look that Gabriel appreciated for one reason: it gave him an excuse to wear a big enough coat to hide his wings.

In a perfect world, Gabriel whined to himself as his pulled on tight fitting flared black jeans and a black T-shirt, he'd be able to go to school in normal jeans and the shirts his mom had made him for wearing in the house that had slits in the back for his wings to stick out of. But in this world he had to get up and extra half an hour early every morning to put on white face powder, black eyeliner and black lipstick to make sure his "creepy gothic look" was "over the top enough to justify the coat" as his mother put it.

Gabriel thought the full look made him look like an Edwardian vampire and had made the mistake of telling his Martha this. She had rather gleefully made him several more coats from reprints of antique patterns and even a couple poet shirts to go with them that made him look like a vampire in earnest. Whenever he wore the complete vampire look, poet shirt and all, he would invariable catch several girls that never talked to him eyeing him in a disconcertingly hungry way. This freaked him out.

Actually, Gabriel thought, in a perfect world his mother would be able to home school him and he wouldn't have to worry about mobs of people trying to pluck him like a chicken, sexually repressed teenage girls with vampire fetishes, or the basic teenage woes of not fitting in, which was hard enough for normal kids, let alone boys who had to hide their wings by dressing like a character from a bad made-for-TV horror flick.

Martha was sitting at the table flicking through the paper when Gabriel came into the kitchen. The Brookes kitchen table was used for basically everything but eating as evidenced by the pile of Gabriel's school books in one corner, the pile of clean laundry next to it and the assortment of mail, magazines and other random things that tended to accumulate over any empty surface space on it.

"That Magneto man is on the front page again," she sighed, "I wish they would try to catch him."

"They are trying mom," Gabriel yawned, "But they're still using metal cars and metal guns and metal hand cuffs to chase and attempt to capture a man who can control metal."

"Those cable hacks of his make me so nervous. It's unnerving to be watching TV and all of a sudden see this crazy terrorist in a helmet and cape saying he wants to kill everyone."

"He doesn't want to kill everyone Mom. He just wants Mutants to be given some of the rights humans have."

"Mutants are humans," Martha said firmly.

"Right," Gabriel sneered, glancing at the article under the picture of Magneto, which covered the debate of the Mutant Registration act in Congress, "God knows we're treated like it."

"Your bagel's in the toaster," She said in a tone that very clearly was intended to change the subject.

"Thanks."

"Oh, and I've got yesterday's mail here somewhere," Martha set the paper on the floor and dug through the pile under it, "Here we go, you've got a lot a late notice from the library, a chance to win a million dollars, and a bunch of college stuff," She handed him the stack of envelopes, "The top one looks pretty great."

Oh, no. Not again, "Mom, I told you-"

"And your guidance counselor called. You missed your meeting again. She's starting to really get on my case."

"Mom, I don't want to have this conversation again. I'm not going to that meeting," Gabriel said trying very hard to keep the aggravation out of his voice as he bit into his bagel.

"Mrs. Larson just wants to help you find out where you're going after high school. She's says with your grades and test scores you have your pick of schools-"

"No I don't!" He exclaimed, angry now. He understood that love was supposed to be blind, but sometimes he wondered if his mother honestly didn't get it, or if she just pretended everything was normal for his benefit, or possibly her own, "Mom, I can't go to college. And even if I could what am I supposed to do afterward? What great job am I supposed to get to pay off all the tuition we can't afford?"

"Gabriel!" She started in on him, "Tina, my friend out in California? Her son is a Mutant, and he's a doctor."

"Is his lab coat long enough to cover his wings, Mom?" Gabriel asked with sarcastic sweetness.

"Well, he's telekinetic he hasn't got..." she trailed off, "Well it doesn't matter," she asserted.

"Yeah Mom, it does!" Gabriel yelled, "Best case scenario I'd go to a college that doesn't require students to live on campus, get an apartment to myself so I don't have to try and keep my big secret from a roommate, and not be able to pay for it because I can't get a job because no one will hire Mutants, and then just end up getting thrown out of the school anyway when the Registration Act passes."

"And what if the Registration Act doesn't pass?" his mother demanded.

Gabriel started sliding his books into his book bag, "Then we will have spent a lot of money on an education that does me no good because I can't wear a suit!" He stormed out of the kitchen and out of the door, fuming and wishing he had made some sort of overly dramatic gesture like pushing something off the table or picking up and dropping a chair, but at the same time being glad that he hadn't. He would still have to see his mother later after all.

He hated thinking about his future, because unlike nearly everyone else at school who had been able to spend their senior years buried under a pile of options and surrounded by potential career paths there was no denying that despite his skills and intelligence, Gabriel didn't have a future. Even the dreaded life behind a counter at McDonalds that the teachers had been threatening students with since the beginning of high school wasn't an option for him. He couldn't wear the uniform and no one would eat Chicken McNuggets served to them by someone with wings.

There were colleges that welcomed Mutants. Usually very good colleges, because better colleges tend to be very liberal, but again, even the best grades at the best college weren't going to get a freak a job.

But just because he didn't want to think about his future didn't mean that hadn't thought about it. He just couldn't think of a way to tell his mother that he only had two options. Either he lived in her house, ate her food, and drove her car for the rest of his life... or he joined Magneto's Brotherhood.

And there were times when living at home forever didn't seem so bad, but most of the time, when he was watching kids happily playing the sports he couldn't, or watching the normal kids at school enjoying the relationships he'd never have, like friends and girlfriends, or recycling the view books for colleges he couldn't go to, or telling his guidance counselor he was considering a career he couldn't have... he thought Magneto might have the right idea.


	2. A Little Help From My Friends

Gabriel had still been in a brooding bad temper when he got to school, but it had slowly dissipated as his day went on. He had gotten an A on his quiz in English and there had been an interesting discussion in History about how the railroad had changed warfare. As school days went today wasn't bad.

The lunch bell rang and Gabriel worked his way through the crowd down to his locker. He caught his reflection in the small magnetic mirror on the inside of the door as he pulled it open. His eyeliner had gotten smudged. That had probably been there all morning. Gabriel sighed, he was sure there was something in the world that was more embarrassing than having to fix your makeup in a high school boys bathroom, but if there was he hadn't discovered it yet. He brushed the smudge with his thumb, trying not to bring attention to himself.

"Hey fag!" Gabriel heard a voice shout. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Derek Kingsley loping down the hall toward him, two of his fellow hicks in tow, insipid grins plastered across their broad stupid faces. So much for not bringing attention to himself, he thought with frustration.

"Whatsamatter GAY-briel?" Derek sneered, "Is your mascara running?"

Gabriel tried very hard not to roll his eyes. Derek and his cronies usually got bored with him fast enough. Taylor Macintosh, the smallest member of Derek's posse, pulled Gabriel's mirror from the inside of his locker door and threw it. It skidded down the hallway as the three jerks closed in around him.

"That's a real nice blouse, fag," Ross Cleary snarled, "Did you make it yourself?" he shoved Gabriel back into his locker. The edge of the door caught him painfully in the wing. Gabriel gritted his teeth tighter and tried not to react, it would only spur them on.

"Hey!" another voice shouted from behind Ross, "Hey, I'm talking to you!" Derek, Ross and Taylor wheeled around and stepped far enough apart for Gabriel to see between them.

Gabriel groaned inwardly. Sera Peterson, wearing a shirt with sleeves that hung nearly to her knees, a flowing ankle length skirt and earrings whose dangling ends came to rest on her collar bone had come to his rescue. She stood with one hand on her hip, the other hand was pointed at Derek and clutching the mirror. Gabriel was going to be rescued by a loony dressed like a damsel in distress.

"Helping a fellow freak Sera?" Derek leered at her.

"Why don't you jackasses go gang up on someone at your own IQ level?" she spat, "Then maybe you can wipe each other out and save the rest of us the pain of your company."

"Ouch," Ross laughed, "Someone didn't take their Midol this morning."

Sera rolled her eyes ostentatiously, "Ooohhh good one Cleary. I get it. Because I'm a woman all my actions are a result of hormones," her skirt swung back and forth as she stepped toward him coming to stop with her finger poking into his ribs and her nose inches from his "But because you're an _idiot_ all your actions are based on intolerance and a fear of falling outside the norm lest you be mocked as you mock others," she poked him in the ribs again, hard enough that he flinched and stepped further back from her, "Or maybe you are driven by your own latent homosexuality."

Ross had backed so far away from Sera that he was nearly pressed into Taylor, who had been standing behind him. Looking distinctly overwhelmed Ross glanced at Derek, who shrugged, then at Gabriel, and then back at Sera.

"You're a bitch," He hissed lamely before edging away from her. He looked to Derek again as though he couldn't leave without his leader's okay.

"Maybe we should leave the little freaks alone, fellas," Derek tried to leer, but his grin was rather feeble as he gave Gabriel the obligatory post-harassment push and walked off with Taylor and Ross scurrying behind him. Taylor turned back and made a very rude gesture. In return Sera mockingly mimed being stabbed through the heart.

She sighed throatily and turned away from the three retreating boys to face Gabriel "Here's your mirror," she said casually, holding it out to him. Gabriel took it carefully. Like most people he thought Sera was disconcertingly odd. The way she dressed, the way she talked, the way any paper she was asked to write was always at least 2 pages longer than the guidelines suggested it should be. She was nice enough, but whenever she talked to him in English class he was always suspicious of her motives. She hung out with a group of people that comprised the weird hippie kids, the few gay kids outside of the theater department, and the only three kids in school that couldn't hide the fact that they were Mutants. Gabriel was under the impression that she collected interesting specimens to add to this group and that she was trying to recruit him because of his unique manner of dress. If she only knew how different he really was.

"Thanks," he said after a small uncomfortable pause.

"No worries, any excuse to get on Ross Cleary's case. That guy is such an asshole," She made a violent gesture. Her sleeves flapped.

"Yeah," Gabriel agreed, uncomfortably fiddling with putting his book away. He wished she would walk away.

"Howdya do on the quiz today?" She inquired.

"Oh, fine," Gabriel said, still with his head in his locker.

"I ended up just spark noting the last chapter because I hate the book so much. What do you think?"

"Oh you know, it's Huck Finn. It's boring and you spend the whole time wondering why it was ever popular and why we still read it," he emerged from his locker with his lunch bag and glanced at Sera, who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall, before he pretended to be preoccupied with stuffing books into his bag.

Sera laughed appreciatively, "Yeah. I don't agree with banning books, but every time Mrs. Mahill assigns us a block of chapters I think I could make an exception for that one," she twirled an earring around her finger, "Your point about the symbolism of the river was interesting though."

"Um... thanks." Gabriel said self-consciously.

"Oh, hey! Gladys!" Sera called to a blonde girl down the hall. Gabriel saw Gladys look up to see who had called her name and felt his stomach begin to tighten as she gave him and Sera a friendly wave and walked over to them.

Like most of the other kids at school, Gabriel did his best to avoid the three known Mutants. They made him nervous, none more so than Gladys Miller. She might have been very pretty if she had stayed normal. She had a pale, heart shaped face and wavy blonde hair that flowed to just above her waist, but her most striking feature was her eyes. They were noticeably larger than normal people's and more protuberant, and were entirely midnight blue. There were no pupils, no irises, no whites, just patches of midnight blue peeking out from under her eye lids. Whenever her creepy gaze fell on him in the hallways, or in Math class, (which they had together) he felt like she was looking right into him, and all his secrets were laid bare. It gave him chills.

The fact that she had been relatively popular when they were younger also scared Gabriel. She had been, if not the Queen of the sixth grade, one of the better liked princesses. But on the first day of seventh grade the rest of the Middle School High Court had arrived in the hall ways with their new haircuts and new clothes and she shown up with oversized sunglasses, which had preserved her precarious perch pretty well, until class started and she was forced to remove them.

Gabriel hadn't been there, but everyone had heard the story. There had been a total uproar. People had run screaming from the room, a few had burst into other classrooms to shout out the news. Gladys had been dragged to the principal's office and her parents were called to come and take her home. They had come but refused to let their daughter be sent home. There had been a very long and loud argument between the principal and the Miller that had finally ended when the harassed old man had been completely unable to find any clause in the school rules or bylaws that specifically prevented Gladys from staying. The fact that Gladys had fallen so far down the social ladder because of something as minor as her eyes made Gabriel worry what might happen to him if anyone found out exactly how much of a freak he really was.

"Hey guys," Gladys greeted them fixing her strange eyes on each of them in turn.

"Hey," Gabriel replied, clutching his lunch uncomfortably and wondering how rude it would be to leave the two girls at his locker and go eat in peace.

"Can you still go over that worksheet with me? I couldn't do, like, the last 10 problems," Sera said, then added for Gabriel "I'm so terrible at math it's just sad."

"Yeah, no problem," Gladys said, "I'll grab mine out of my locker."

"Groovy," Sera and Gladys started off down the hall and Gabriel gave a small sigh of relief.

"Oh, gosh," Sera stopped suddenly and turned back, "Gabriel, do you want to eat lunch with us?"

Gabriel was completely taken aback, "Oh! Well... I was... actually..." he stammered. Gladys looked at him as though he were a worm on the bottom of her shoe.

"I don't bite, you know," she said stiffly.

"No! no, it's just that..." I always eat alone? The thought finished itself in his head and sounded awful, "Never mind. Yeah. Sure."

And he walked down the hall with Sera and Gladys, who were verbally abusing their abysmal Math teacher, realizing that the three of them together really didn't garner more surreptitious glances than he did all by himself.


End file.
